Madeleine Albright and the Debacle of Western Politics

I am bored by reading people who are allies, people of roughly the same views. What is interesting is to read the enemy, because the enemy penetrates the defences.
Isaiah Berlin

Anyway, distinctions no longer mattered in a dance of death, where all the dancers spun on the edge of nothing.
Anna Kavan, Ice (1967)

The darker the reality, the brighter the speech.
Jacques Ellul

64th Secretary of State of the United States (and first woman to serve in that position). Chair of the Albright Stonebridge Group and Albright Capital Management. Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Chair of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. President of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, American highest civilian honor, in recognition of her contributions to international peace and democracy…

With such an impressive curriculum, one could assume that Madeleine Albright is fully capable of providing a satisfying, in-depth analysis of the increasing weakness afflicting liberal democracies all over the world. Brexit, the rise of Trump and the ongoing protests in Paris are just a few examples of an underlying malaise which is channeling popular rage against the traditional establishment. What is happening? The answer she provides in her latest book – Fascism: A warning (2018) – is not clear at all. And she is the first one to admit it:

In my twenty-plus years as a professor, I have learned to ask myself, when I am not getting good answers, whether it is because I haven’t been looking in the right places. I wonder now whether we, as democratic citizens, have been remiss in forming the right questions. (pp. 249-250)

The Loop of Democracy

Irrational Absurd Triangle Escher Triangle Geometry

Back in 1992, American political philosopher Francis Fukuyama published the influential essay The End of History and the Last Man. His main thesis pointed out that, after the end of the Cold War, liberal democracy was destined to become, gradually, the final form of government. After 25 years, we may argue that (somehow) he was right – but probably not for the reason he thought. Even if we certainly live in deeply chaotic times, history is far from being come to an end. Nevertheless, liberal democracies may represent the final (or terminal) form of government (at least in Western countries) not because they are the best option available, but because of the incapability of conceiving something different. In other words, I fear we are not moving forward since we are short-sighted, and not because we have found a settlement so good that it is preferable not to leave it.

Clinton vs. Assange: Hiding the Truth with the Help of Media

Australian journalist John Pilger has been bravely denouncing the “side effects” of Western foreign policies for many decades. In the following article, he offers a striking example of how a (very) partisan interview can intentionally manipulate the truth in order to back a narrative based more on fairy tales than on real facts. This excellent piece of journalism gives an idea of how the alliance between politicians and media can affect the development of a mature, aware public opinion through the dissemination of “alternative truths” conceived to legitimate the existing systems of power. If one believes to the story emerging from the interview conducted by ABC Australia and does not look for other sources of information, he/she will end up considering Hillary Clinton as a conspiracy victim and Assange as a Russian spy. A good plot for the next James Bond movie.

Rising Idiocracies? A Political Reflection

Whenever I think about contemporary politics (and about western political leaders in particular) there is always a movie sequence that comes to my mind: the final scene of Burn After Reading, directed by Ethan and Joel Coen almost ten years ago. The always excellent J.K. Simmons plays a CIA Superior who is questioning an Officer (David Rasche) about the result of an operation aimed at recovering a mysterious disk. The problem is that they have made an incredible mess, casualties included. The CIA Superior suggests they should learn something from the errors committed, but since they do not know exactly what they have done, there cannot be a lesson to learn. Next time, things will likely get even worse.

The Coen’s movie, full of dumb characters who cause serious damage while barely realizing it, may be interpreted as the portrait of a country (or, maybe, of the entire western society) whose politics has reached its terminal state: harmful idiocy. If one considers – just to make a few recent examples – the arrogant and devastating foreign policies of the Bush and Obama administrations, UK former Prime Minister David Cameron’s suicidal referendum about Brexit, the ineptitude of former French President François Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s very questionable policies on immigration and the agonizing, ridiculous Italian political class, the doubt is as chilling as inevitable. Is there an epidemic of criminal idiocy spreading throughout our societies, or this is just the inevitable outcome of decades of bad education, greed and very short-sighted decisions?